Pit bulls ruled vicious, dangerous following Broadfording Road attack

Owners Justin Conrad and Amanda Collis will have to keep dogs in a confined area or on a leash

February 16, 2012|By DAVE McMILLION | davem@herald-mail.com

A Washington County board ruled Thursday night that two pit bulls were vicious and dangerous following a hearing in which a man from the Broadfording Road area testified how his dogs had been attacked.

Jeff Crampton said one of his dogs had to be euthanized due to its wounds.

As part of its ruling, the five-member Washington County Animal Control Authority said the pit bulls could be returned to owners Justin Conrad and Amanda Collis of Broadfording Road.

But the dogs will have to be kept in a confined area, and if they are taken out of a confined area, they must me muzzled and on a leash, said Evelyn Garrett of the Humane Society of Washington County.

Before they can reclaim the dogs, which are currently being kept by the humane society, Conrad and Collis will have to pay an impoundment fee of $25 per dog and a $20 fee for every day the dogs have been impounded, Garrett said.

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The humane society took the dogs on Feb. 1 after one of the attacks occurred on Jan. 28.

During the hearing, Crampton described in detail the wounds his dogs suffered in the attacks and showed photographs which he had mounted on posters.

Crampton said one of the dog-bite scenes looked like a “Charles Manson bloodbath. Everybody’s scared to death.”

Collis testified that her pit bulls have never showed any aggressive behavior toward her children or other dogs.

Conrad said if his dogs committed the attacks, there would have been more signs that they did so.

“If they would have done that, they would have come home covered in blood,” said Conrad, looking at Crampton’s pictures of his injured dogs.

Dr. Robert Russon, a veterinarian who testified during the hearing held at the Washington County Administrative Annex at 80 W. Baltimore St. in Hagerstown, said it is impossible to predict what dogs will do in different environments.

Russon, who noted that pit bulls are “bred to be aggressive,” said he believes anyone that allows pit bulls to run loose should not be allowed to have them.

Although animal-control authority members had trouble matching up some of the testimony in the case, they relied on “impressions” that were taken of the pit bulls’ teeth.

Then they used the shapes of the impressions and compared them to the bites shown in Crampton’s photographs.

Authority member Sam Billotti said it was “uncanny” how similar the impressions were to the bites.

Authority member Kathleen “Katie” Carr congratulated Garrett and another humane society officer for their work on the impressions, which Carr called “absolute stellar.”